


Trying To Forget

by caramelkaren



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelkaren/pseuds/caramelkaren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolina wakes up from another nightmare, one that she'd much rather not talk about.  Created using prompt given by an anon on tumblr: Yorkalina "He's dead now, let's move on."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying To Forget

**Author's Note:**

> I put the character death warning because it does depict one, but I mean...It's a Yorkalina fic set after PFL. The warning isn't that necessary, right?
> 
> Set before Carolina and Epsilon reunite with the Reds and Blues.

Another night, another nightmare to wake you up from your sleep. God, no wonder your performance wasn't always on par lately. How were you supposed to operate on 100% if you weren't getting proper rest?

"Carolina, you alright?" Epsilon asked, flickering beside you.

"Yes, Church, I'm fine."

"Okay, I didn't ask that question so you could lie to me. You have nightmares on a regular basis. You're not fine."

"Maybe I wasn't fine when I was sleeping, but I'm alright now."

"Was it another dream about Sigma?"

"No, not this time."

You didn't want to talk about the subject of your nightmare. Of watching York die bloody.

You knew it wasn't an exact recounting of how it really went down. Firstly, it wasn't the right location. Secondly, you were there. You couldn't remember what it was you were doing in the dream before you heard gunshots ring out. Naturally you went towards the sound rather than running away from it. You're a soldier after all. You couldn't find the leftmost source of the shooting - though thinking upon it, it's obvious it was Wyoming sniping from somewhere hidden - but you did manage to find the other soldier in the conflict, recognizing the dull tan amor color anywhere.

"York!" you shouted out in an emotional impulse. Oh god, you hadn't seen him in so long, and there was so much you wanted to tell him. So much you needed to tell him.

"Carolina?" he asked, and there was just the miniscule turn of his helmet in your direction, and that's when you knew you fucked up. You shouldn't have said anything. You would've been better off jumping into the fight and helping him unnanounced. Because for just the amount of time needed for Wyoming to get a good shot at him, you broke York's concentration.

You rushed to York, lucky that no shots were continuing to be fired - in fact, you swear you heard the sound of a Ghost flying away in the distance, of Wyoming retreating from the scene. He mentioned that his healing unit had been badly damaged, and Delta spewed off statistics about how York was most likely not going to survive the shot. You woke up just as York was dying in your arms...

"I hope you realize, Carolina, that the more you think about the dream, the more I know about it. Neural link and all. Kind of hard to forget it's there, don't ya think?"

"Well, fine. Now you know."

"You know, whenever you talk about Project Freelaner to me, you always tend to avoid York. You'll bring up South's temper, Florida's general creepiness, Maine's good heart, but you never mention York if you don't have to."

"Why should I?"

"You loved him, Carolina. More than anyone else."

"How about this for a reason? He's dead now. Let's move on. You of all people should understand not wanting to keep a dead love's memories to the surface."

"You got it all wrong here. I let Tex go because we - we being The Director, Alpha, and I - kept trying to bring back a dead woman who didn't want it. I did it because she wanted to be let go. York on the other hand? From what little bit I remember of him from Wash's memories, I'm pretty sure he'd be disappointed in you for not trying to keep his memory alive."

"Maybe it just hurts too much to talk about, did you ever think about that, Epsilon?"

That managed to shut him up.

You took a deep breath, because it wouldn't do to try to explain your case while yelling at him. "York and I left on bad terms. At the end of Project Freelancer, I had started to shut everyone out, including him. I was so focused on trying to be better than Tex, to try to have that attention back that the Director was giving her...I lost focus on everything else that was important to me. So when Tex staged the break-in to save Alpha and she recruited York, I didn't want to see his point of view. The last time I saw him, you could say it was effectively a breakup. If I had been willing to listen to him, maybe things would have turned out better. Maybe he'd still be alive, maybe other Freelancers would be, too."

"I'm sorry, Carolina. I truly am. I know you take a lot of blame for what went wrong with Project Freelancer. Just know that I don't blame you for any of it."

"Thank you, Church."

"I think I'm gonna shut down for a while, let you be alone with your thoughts."

"I'd really like that."

As Epsilon flickered away from view and the your head became the source for only one voice, it felt nice to be left alone for a while. You kept thinking though of what he said, that York would be disappointed in you for not wanting to keep his memory around. If circumstances were different and you'd been the one to die, you knows he would go around telling anyone and everyone stories about the two of you. Stories about the girl with the fiery red hair and bright green eyes. And okay, maybe that wasn't exactly what Epsilon wanted out of you, to turn York into some fireside tale, but it wouldn't hurt to talk about him more, would it? After all, he was your love.


End file.
